an open grave. Such an object, in such a scene, would, at any time, have disturbed her; but now she was shocked by an instantaneous presentiment, that this was the grave of her unfortunate aunt, and that the treacherous Barnardine was leading herself to destruction. The obscure and terrible place, to which he had conducted her, seemed to justify the thought; it was a place suited for murder, a receptacle for the dead, where a deed of horror might be committed, and no vestige appear to proclaim it. Emily was so overwhelmed with terror, that for a moment she was unable to determine what conduct to pursue. She then considered, that it would be vain to attempt an escape from Barnardine, by flight, since the length and intricacy of the way she had passed would soon enable him to overtake her, who was unacquainted with the turnings, and whose feebleness would not suffer her to run long with swiftness. She feared equally to irritate him by a disclosure of her suspicions, which a refusal to accompany him farther certainly would do; and, since she was already as much in his power as it was possible she could be, if she proceeded, she, at length, determined to suppress, as far as she could, the appearance of apprehension, and to follow silently whither he designed to lead her. Pale with horror and anxiety, she now waited till Barnardine had trimmed the torch, and, as her sight glanced again upon the grave, she could not forbear inquiring for whom it was prepared. He took his eyes from the torch, and fixed them upon her face without speaking. She faintly repeated the question, but the man, shaking the torch, passed on; and she followed, trembling, to a second flight of steps, having ascended which, a door delivered them into the first court of the castle. As they crossed it, the light shewed the high black walls around them, fringed with long grass and dank weeds, that found a scanty soil among the mouldering stones; the heavy buttresses, with here and there between them a narrow gate, that admitted a freer circulation of air to the court, the massy iron gates, that led to the castle, whose clustering turrets appeared above, and, opposite, the huge towers and arch of the portal itself. In this scene the large, uncouth person of Barnardine, bearing the torch, formed a characteristic figure. This Barnardine was wrapt in a long dark cloak, which scarcely allowed the

kind of half-boots, or sandals, that were laced upon his legs, to appear, and shewed only the point of a broadsword, which he usually wore, slung in a belt across his shoulders. On his head was a heavy flat velvet cap, somewhat resembling a turban, in which was a short feather; the visage beneath it shewed strong features, and a countenance furrowed with the lines of cunning, and darkened by habitual discontent.

The Mysteries of Udolpho.

P. 267, l. 1. Emily the heroine is practically imprisoned in the Castle of Udolpho. She is constantly undergoing harrowing adventures, which lead to nothing in particular. Her tyrant is the husband of the aunt referred to in this passage.

ROBERT HALL.

Robert Hall, the most renowned of modern dissenting preachers, was born in 1764. A Baptist by denomination, he ministered at Bristol and elsewhere; his sermons were of a more political tone than is usual with Anglican divines, but on the whole were distinguished by moderation and good sense, as well as by a certain eloquence and by respectable scholarship. He died in 1831.

REFLEXIONS ON WAR.

IF you had wished to figure to yourselves a country which had

reached the utmost pinnacle of prosperity, you would undoubtedly have turned your eyes to France, as she appeared a few years before the revolution; illustrious in learning and genius; the favourite abode of the arts, and the mirror of fashion, whither the flower of the nobility from all countries resorted, to acquire the last polish of which the human character is susceptible. Lulled in voluptuous repose, and dreaming of a philosophical millennium, without dependence upon God, like the generation before the flood, "they ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage." In that exuberant soil every thing seemed to flourish, but religion and virtue. The season, however, was at length arrived, when God was resolved to punish their impiety, as well as to avenge the blood of His servants, whose souls had for a century been incessantly crying to Him from under the altar. And what method did He employ for this purpose? When He to whom vengeance belongs, when He whose ways are unsearchable, and whose wisdom is inexhaustible, proceeded to the execution of this strange work, He drew from His treasures a

weapon He had never employed before. Resolving to make their punishment as signal as their crimes, He neither let loose an inundation of barbarous nations, nor the desolating powers of the universe: He neither overwhelmed them with earthquakes, nor visited them with pestilence. He summoned from among themselves a ferocity more terrible than either; a ferocity which, mingling in the struggle for liberty, and borrowing aid from that very refinement to which it seemed to be opposed, turned every man's hand against his neighbour, sparing no age, nor sex, nor rank, till, satiated with the ruin of greatness, the distresses of innocence, and the tears of beauty, it terminated its career in the most unrelenting despotism. "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and which was, and which shall be, because Thou hast judged thus, for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy."

Sermons.

T

THATO

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

Sir James Mackintosh was born at Aldourie in 1765, and died in 1832. An orator, a lawyer, a moral philosopher, a historian, a politician, and a jour nalist, Mackintosh may, perhaps, be thought to have scattered his energies too much. Nor is any one part of his work very thorough or very brilliant. For facility and variety, however, combined with a certain competence, he ranks very high among miscellanists.

CHIVALRY.

The

HAT system of manners which arose among the Gothic nations of Europe, and of which chivalry was more properly the effusion than the source, is without doubt one of the most peculiar and interesting appearances in human affairs. moral causes which formed its character have not, perhaps, been hitherto investigated with the happiest success: but chivalry was certainly one of the most prominent of its features and most remarkable of its effects. Candour must confess, that this singular institution was not admirable only as the corrector of the ferocious ages in which it flourished; but that in contributing to polish and soften manners it paved the way for the diffusion of knowledge and the extension of commerce, which afterwards, in some measure, supplanted it. Society is inevitably progressive. Commerce has overthrown the "feudal and chivalrous system" under whose shade it first grew; while learning has subverted the superstition whose opulent endowments had first fostered it. Peculiar circumstances connected with the manners of chivalry favoured this admission of commerce and this growth of knowledge; while the sentiments peculiar to it, already enfeebled in